I’ve been away in Ontario for the past week. I did the following:
-Watched the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Seattle Mariners 7-0.
-Ate nachos in the University of Western Ontario Community Centre and talked loudly about how stressed I was about exams.
-Danced to “Return of the Mack” in a hotel bar patronized almost exclusively by people 45 and older.
-Published an article about Jack White’s new album, Blunderbuss, in The Tyee. Watch the video for his single “Love Interruption” below.
“The Reason” is probably my favourite song from Said the Whale’s recent album, Little Mountain. It’s a piano-led number that’s one of the catchiest tunes in the band’s oeuvre, and it showcases the full power of Ben Worcester’s voice. Watch a video for the song below.
Polaris season is almost upon us, and one album that will have a spot on my ballot is PS I Love You’s excellent Death Dreams, which comes out on May 8 through Paper Bag Records (although I’m thrilled to already have my vinyl copy).
Below, listen to the mammoth-sized (although only 2:22 long) stomper “Princess Towers.” This sounds huge on wax, but still pretty big on laptop speakers.
After spending much of 2011 in Berlin, City of Glass is back in Vancouver. Below, watch the incendiary video for the danceable post-punk number “Sticks and Stones” from last year’s The Diving Bell EP.
The band will celebrate its Canadian return with a show at the Anza Club on May 19. Look for a full-length album to come out sometime before long.
Here’s Seapony’s cover of one of my all-time favourite songs, “Emma’s House” by the Field Mice. I’m not sure exactly where this comes from or when it was released, but the Seattle indie pop band does the song justice by remaining faithful to the original, right down to the lead guitar licks and delayed drum intro.
I’ve seen the band perform this song live a couple of times with Rose Melberg, although she’s not on this recording.
Here’s the latest from Vancouver/Brooklyn-based unit the Albertans. “The Hunter” begins with a peculiar one-chord keyboard motif and whispering vocals before a guitar enters and the song eventually rocks out in the second half of its six-minute runtime. The jittery rhythms mean that this is a bit of a strange one.
I was sort of turned off by the cover of Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” that opens Chromatics‘ Kill for Love, but I like the title track a whole lot more when I listen to it out of context. The sweetly sighing synths and bare-bones electro beats of “Kill for Love” set a lethargic mood that threatens to burst into something more energetic but never really does
I know I, like, just posted a Japandroids song, but fuck it: here’s the band’s new B-side. It’s a cover of “Jack the Ripper” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It’s slower and more syncopated than most of the band’s fist-pumping work, and it taps into something a little creepier and more groove-based. Good stuff.
The long-awaited album from Vancouver’s Hermetic is called Civilized City and it will finally be released on April 24. Here’s the ’90s rock-oriented opening track “Revenge Comedy,” which balances its stormy baritone guitar jams with a touch of harmonized sweetness.
